


Venus Hanging From the Ceiling

by draculard



Category: Ginger Snaps (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 23:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18398345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: When Brigitte was in third grade, she and Ginger made a solar system together.





	Venus Hanging From the Ceiling

They made a solar system together when Brigitte was in third grade, using cheap paint and a bunch of Styrofoam balls. Some of them still hang from Brigitte’s bedroom ceiling — Earth and Mars probably came loose and fell behind her dresser during the night, and Pluto was tackled by the old family cat and ripped to shreds. But the rest are still there, waiting for that moment each night when Brigitte lies awake in bed and stares at them, listing all the names of Jupiter’s moons in her mind.

She can still remember the smell of paint invading her nose, the unsavory crunch and squeak of Styrofoam beneath her fingers, the way Ginger chewed on her paintbrush and goofed off as she worked. It was Ginger who added the plastic rings to Saturn; her hands were steadier than Brigitte’s, and she was capable of detail work with the paint that Brigitte couldn’t quite achieve.

But mostly she goofed off. She stuck the paintbrush handle between her teeth like a cigar with a glob of blue on the end. She tried to juggle the planets — unsuccessfully — and laughed so hard when she accidentally sat on Venus that Brigitte couldn’t stay mad at her, even though they had to do Venus all over again.

At night, staring up at the remaining planets, Brigitte sighs and turns on her side. The wall is covered in photos of herself and Ginger, staging crime scenes and suicides. There’s a battered copy of _Wuthering Heights_ , Ginger’s favorite book, lying on a shelf next to a pristine copy of _No Longer Human_ , Brigitte’s favorite. She could never get Ginger to read it.

She remembers taking a bath with Ginger sitting on the edge of the tub, folding back the cover of _Wuthering Heights_ , reading her favorite passages aloud to Brigitte. She dropped it in the water once, and just roared with laughter, making no attempt to fish it out. It was Brigitte who rescued it, who laid it out in the sun to dry, who separated the pages carefully, with a hair dryer blowing in one hand.

Since then the book has been in Brigitte’s room, next to the bed she used to share with Ginger. Through the walls, she can hear the low thump of music in Ginger’s room. Nick Cave, his voice low, his lyrics running together in an inconsistent mumble.

In some of their photos, Ginger poses like a sitter for a portrait, fake blood running from a latex wound on her throat, her legs twisted into painful positions to look like they’re broken. She straddles the border between beautiful and grotesque, and Brigitte can remember the way it felt to sleep next to her sister in the summer, the bare skin of their arms and legs brushing against each other.

She turns back onto her back with a sigh and stares up at Venus hanging from the ceiling. The speck of blue paint on Ginger’s teeth — the sound of her laughter — the taste of her lips when she taught Brigitte how to kiss, even though she didn’t have any experience herself. All of it melts together into one colorful, confusing swirl of memories, of sensations she’d forgotten.

Sleep turns her vision blurry, until all she sees above her is a dark silhouette, and all her thoughts and memories become one.

Venus hanging from the ceiling.

Ginger hanging from a string.


End file.
